Cornies: Lots more to discuss on future of city's arts

At the start of a panel this week on the future of the arts in London, Grand Theatre artistic associate Megan Watson described the session as an attempt “to invite the community into discussions we’re having behind closed doors.”

If that’s true, then bring them on.

And if the issues debated Wednesday night under the stark lights of the McManus stage are really the ones local arts administrators chew over in private, then it’s high time the rest of us listened in and took note.

Four themes emerged during the hour-long debate, each important for the future of the arts in this city.

• The future is interdisciplinary: Old notions of what constitutes a performance space — a concert hall for musicians, a curtained stage for actors — are dissolving with the arrival of new technologies. The arts are moving into the public realm in increasingly diverse settings. Producers want to heighten audience experiences and stretch their imaginations with projections, special effects and other multimedia tools that magnify the impact of their shows.

Andrew Chung, general manager of London Symphonia, illustrated the point by saying the new orchestra is determined to be more that “a symphony in a box.” It’s aiming to explore new venues, new collaborations and new creative forms (the local chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society created images for the orchestra’s latest rendition of Holst’s The Planets, for example).

“We’re magnifying our artistic efforts with partnerships; that’s the way to make it succeed,” Chung said.

• Walls need to be come down: If the London arts scene were a house on a TV home renovations show, the sledgehammers would be out.

Here again, Chung led the way: “London is a bit of a siloed community,” he said, from a vantage point that includes residence in Stratford and frequent professional engagements in other cities, such as Toronto.

“How can we break that down?” he asked, with a seriousness that begged to make the question more than just rhetorical.

Kathy Navackas, executive producer for London Fringe, spoke about a “new ecology” among London arts groups that would create a stronger sense of connectedness among those who develop dramas, music, visual arts, novels and other art forms. Otherwise, she said, “I don’t think we’re feeding our artists.”

• Demographics and audiences are changing: Using just about any metric — race, ethnic origin, economic drivers, incomes — London is a very different city than it was two or three decades ago.

“What concerns me about London’s artistic community is that it’s very homogenous. That’s a very big problem,” Navackas said, making the point that the face of the arts in London is a bit of a mismatch when held up to the face of the city itself.

Navackas pointed to the recent influx of newcomers to the London region from Syria as an example. Among them, she said, are talented artists, musicians, dancers and skilled artisans.

London Arts Council executive director Andrea Halwa agreed. Events such as music festivals and the annual Culture Days often feature the arts and institutions of ethnic and cultural minorities, but “the audiences are a lot of white people.”

It’s important for the city to knit the artistic expressions of newcomers and minorities into the daily, durable fabric of the local arts scene.

• We need to aim higher, unapologetically: That, said Halwa, requires “fearless leadership” at all levels, from city council to those who mind the smallest of arts endeavours. “Don’t tell me how you can’t; tell me how you’re going to, even in the face of 5,000 reasons why it can’t be done,” she said.

It was Emma Donoghue, the Irish-Canadian playwright, novelist and screenwriter, most famous for her novel Room and her Academy Award-nominated screenplay by the same name, who put the finest point on the argument.

London, she said, suffers from a deficiency of what she called “high ambition.”

“There is too much safety, too much back-slapping, too much emphasis on what is appropriate for a mid-sized city,” she said, reiterating the point that risk, imagination and ambition are essential oils in the alchemy that is artistic achievement.

In addition, Donoghue said, “we need to actively cultivate participation in the arts” by the diverse communities that make us culturally rich, as Toronto does. “We need to show that wealth here,” she said.

The Grand Theatre’s panel series, sponsored by rTraction, continues in the new year with other topics billed for discussion.

But the subject of this week’s debate is vital to the arts in this city, and deserves to continue, with much broader community participation, in some other venue.

It was, alas, only a discussion starter, in which normally closed-door debate came out to play, if only for an evening.

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